“I don’t have to listen to any of this.” She turned away.
He caught her arm. “Would you rather that Westfield said it? Would you rather that he were here now with his blazing six-guns and his ability to trick a gullible young medical student?”
She gave him a cool look worthy of her sister. “Release my arm.”
He did so immediately, his anger leaving him. “Blair, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said. It’s just that I’m so tired of looking the fool. I’m tired of staying in my hotel room and of not being allowed to meet your parents. I feel like the one who’s unwanted, rather than Westfield.”
She felt herself giving in to him. His anger was perfectly understandable. She put her hand to his cheek. “I wanted to leave with you that first day, but you wanted a competition. You agreed to it, and now my future life as a doctor is in jeopardy. I can’t leave Chandler with you until the twentieth. But have some faith that I will leave with you.”
He escorted her to within a block of her house, and when they parted, Blair felt the tension in Alan. He was worried and nothing Blair said seemed to make any difference.
At the house, she went to her room, glad for once that her mother didn’t give her an itemized list of the flowers and candy that Leander had had delivered while she was out. Instead, Opal merely greeted her pleasantly and went back to her sewing, while Blair had to practically drag herself up the stairs.
She was determined not to spend the afternoon crying, as she’d spent the morning, so she stretched out on the bed and tried to read a chapter about burn victims in a book that Alan had lent her.
At three, Susan, the upstairs maid, came in with a tray of food. “Mrs. Gates said I was to bring this up to you and to ask if you needed anything else.”
“No,” Blair said listlessly, pushing the food out of reach.
Susan paused at the door, running her apron along the door frame. “Of course, you heard about yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Blair asked, without much interest. How could Alan think that she was interested in Leander? Hadn’t she made it clear to everyone involved that she wanted nothing whatever to do with him?
“I thought maybe since you were asleep when Miss Houston came in last night, and then you left so early this morning, that you might not have heard about Mr. Taggert and the awful mess he made at the garden party yesterday, and how he carried Miss Houston out, and then he came here and I do believe that your mother almost fell in love with him, and he’s going to buy her a pink train and—.”
Susan had Blair’s attention now. “Slow down a minute and tell me everything.” She curled her legs on the bed and began to eat the food in front of her.
“Well,” Susan said slowly, obviously enjoying being the center of attention. “Yesterday, your sister showed up at Miss Tia Mankin’s garden party—the one you were invited to but didn’t go to—and standing next to her was this divine man, and at first no one recognized him. Of course, I was only told this because I wasn’t really there, but I got to see him later and everything they said was more than true. I never thought that that big dirty man could look so good. Anyway, he came to the party and all the women gathered around him, and then he took food to Miss Houston and spilled it in her lap. Nobody could say a word for a minute, but somebody started to laugh, and the next thing you know, Mr. Taggert picked Miss Houston up and carried her out of the garden and put her in that pretty new buggy he bought her.”
Blair had a mouthful of sandwich and tried to wash it down with milk. “Didn’t Houston say anything? I can’t imagine her allowing a man to do that in public.” Truthfully, she couldn’t imagine her sister allowing that in private, either.
“I never saw anything like that with Dr. Leander, but not only did Miss Houston allow it, she brought him here and asked your mother to entertain him in the parlor.”
“My mother? But she cries every time she hears the name of Taggert.”
“Not after yesterday. I don’t know what it is about him she likes, other than his looks, because the man scares me to death, but she almost fell in love with him. I helped Miss Houston change clothes, and when we got downstairs, your mother was asking him to call her Opal, and he was asking her what color train car he could buy her.”
Susan took the empty tray off the bed. “But something awful must have happened after Miss Houston left with the man, because she came home last night in tears. She tried to hide it from me when I helped her undress, but I could see that she was crying. And today, she hasn’t eaten and she’s stayed in her room all day.” She gave Blair a sly look as she paused at the doorway. “Just like you. This house ain’t a happy place today,” she said just before she left the room.
Immediately, Blair left her room and went to her sister. Houston was lying on the bed, her eyes red and swollen and looking a picture of misery. The first thought that Blair had was that her sister’s unhappiness was her fault. If she hadn’t come back to Chandler, Houston would still be engaged to Leander, and she wouldn’t be considering marrying a man who spilled food all over her and mauled her in public.
Blair tried to talk to Houston, telling her that if she made it clear that she still wanted Lee, she could probably still have him, and she wouldn’t have to sacrifice herself to that man Taggert. But the more Blair talked, the more Houston closed up. She would say nothing except that Leander no longer loved her, and that he wanted Blair in a way that he’d never wanted her.
Blair wanted to tell her sister that if she’d just wait until the twentieth, she could have Lee. She wanted to tell about the blackmail scheme, and about Alan and how much she loved him, but she was afraid that would make Houston feel worse, as if she were the consolation prize. All Houston could seem to talk about was the fact that Lee had rejected her, that he wanted Blair, and that Taggert was making her miserable, although she wouldn’t tell Blair exactly what the man had done to her.
And the more Houston talked, the worse Blair felt. She’d gone out with Leander in the first place because she’d been worried that he wasn’t good for her sister. She’d been worried because Houston hadn’t been upset after Lee had been angry with her. But now, Houston had a totally different kind of man and she spent the entire day in misery. If only she hadn’t interfered!
Houston was standing by her bed, trying to stop the flood of tears cascading down her face.
“You may think that you failed with Leander, but you didn’t. And you don’t have to punish yourself with an overbearing oaf. He can’t even handle a plate of food, much less—.”
Blair stopped because Houston slapped her across the face.
“He’s the man I’m going to marry,” Houston said, anger in her voice. “I’ll not let you or anyone else denigrate him.”
With her hand to her cheek, Blair’s eyes began to fill with tears. “What I’ve done is coming between us,” she whispered. “No man anywhere means more than sisters,” she said before leaving the room.
The rest of the day was even worse for Blair. If she’d had any doubts as to why Houston was marrying Taggert, they were put to rest just before dinner when a dozen rings were delivered from the man. Houston took one look at them and her face lit up like a gaslight on high. She fairly floated from the room, and Blair wondered if the presents of the carriage and thirteen rings were going to be enough to make up for having to live with a man like Taggert. From the look on Houston’s face, it seemed as if she thought so.